Of Nightmares and Monsters
by Child Of Old
Summary: Finnick survived the rebellion. Annie never existed in this universe and instead Finnick met another girl from District four who he married after the rebellion and lived 'happily ever after' with. This is my take on how a 'happily ever after' would go for two victors who have gone through hell and are trying to move on. One Shot.
_**Just to recap, Finnick— obviously— survived the rebellion. Annie never existed in this parallel universe and instead Finnick met another girl from District four, called Lillibet, who he married after the rebellion and lived 'happily ever after' with. This is my take on how a 'happily ever after' would go for two victors who have gone through hell and are trying to move on.**_

-0-

I woke up screaming, like I sometimes did. The dreams came to me, like they did to him, but unlike him I didn't suffer in silence, paralysed, unmoving, in my sleep. I kicked and I screamed and I yelled for something— help, release, consciousness, I didn't know— and always he was there, guiding me back, upwards, back towards reality, back towards life.

"Lil, Lillibet, baby, darling, wake up." I could hear his begging voice before I reached the surface— feel his hands on my skin, his lips on my face and suddenly I was there. 

The sheets were tangled in my legs, twisted, trapping me, and as I sat and shivered and whimpered, still caught up in the cage of my past, caught up in the cage of my own mental torture, he slowly but surely rescued me from the bed clothes. He cooed and made soft sounds as he did so— soothing noises, like he made to the baby. The baby. Finnick. Water. Safety.

When he finally freed me, he straightened everything and then took me into his arms. They were as strong, as muscly, as broad as they had been all those years ago and it was at times like these that I felt that they could take on the world just to protect me. Protect him. Protect us. I knew he was waiting, like he always did. He was always waiting, just as I did. Although he didn't scream in his sleep, wasn't outwardly panicked when he sensed the nightmares coming, we were so in-tuned now that I woke up when he was having them— I woke him up and tried to reach him through his own maze of horrors. And when he woke up, just as he did me, I waited. I waited for the questions.

"You love me." I murmured, and his arms tightened around me, pressing my head into the nook between his shoulder and his neck. "Real or not real?" 

I could feel the press of his lips against my hair then, and that, like nothing else, was able to slow my heartbeat a little. But I could still feel them, like shadows, the nightmares. They were watching me. Fucks sake, they were always watching me. Questioning everything I do. I would never be whole again, never be sane. But Finnick always told me— I didn't have to be whole. He wasn't whole either. Two halves made a whole. That's what we were. Two halves that made a whole. Without each other we were nothing. That didn't bother me as much as it should have done. 

"Real." He muttered, back into my hair. "Always real, Lillibet." 

He didn't tell me to never doubt it, as I had heard other people tell their significant others. He knew that, when the memories came back, when I couldn't be sure which was real and which was the Capitol haunting me all these years later, I would doubt. Just as he did. Sometimes it was just a question of whether he was here at all. Sometimes it was a question of his love. And sometimes it was a question of his loyalty— to me and the rebels or to the Capitol. The Capitol hadn't existed for years now, and the news told us that this was a stable democracy we could all flourish in. But was that real, or not real?

"My name is Lillibet Grange." I started the questions, in the same order they were always asked in. I felt Finnick settle against the headboard of our bed. "Real or not real?" 

"Lillibet Odair." He corrected. "Real."

"I am from District Four." I continued. "Real or not real?" 

He smoothed the sweat from my forehead and pressed another gentle kiss there.

"Real." He assured me. "God, you swim like a fish, Lillibet. How I never noticed you before the civil war is a miracle."

I had to smile at that, pressing up against him.

"We have a daughter, Kataleena, and a son, Finn. Real or not real?" 

And, like clockwork, he answered ' _Real_ ' and so the questions continued, until every piece of our lives was dissected and I knew which was real and which part of me was still a Capitol Mutt. For instance, having Peeta and Katniss over for dinner the next night is _real_ but Katniss trying to kill me and/or Finnick is _not real_. Visiting what used to be the Capitol for memorial day was _real_ but participating in a symbolic Hunger Games was _not real_. My favourite question— and the worst, when for a moment I thought it might not be true— was the last one. My oldest child learning about the hunger games was _real._ That I'd have to send her off to the Hunger Games was _not real_. She would never have to face the horrors she and her father suffered. Never, God willing, would she have to make the decision we had to make— our own survival for somebody elses. Every time Finnick answered ' _Not real_ ' to me was music to my ears.

Finally, we were just sitting in the dark, staring at the other side of the room, wrapped up in each others arms so tightly that we knew we would never be separated.

"Katniss has this game, you know." He finally told me, in the dark and quiet. "She apparently lists all the good things she's ever seen somebody do until the fear goes away. I've tried it, it actually works. I know you think nothing will ever make the nightmares away, but you have to _try_ , Lillibet. Goddamn you, every time you wake up like this I want to bring Snow and Coin back just so I can slaughter them again for you."

This was a new progression in our nightly routine. Unsure at how to progress, I leaned back to see if I could see him through the dark of night. His handsome, chiselled features stood out in the darkness. I reached up, seeming unable to stop myself, and traced them with my finger tips. He reached forward and captured my hand, kissing the finger tips softly. 

"Its okay. We didn't know each other well back then." I murmured, trying to soothe this sudden tension in him. "If you feel guilty, you shouldn't. The amount of times you saved my life just getting into the Capitol during that time— you saved me more then you'll ever know, Finnick Odair. And you didn't even know me."

He was quiet in the darkness. I could see the gleam of his eyes as he contemplated my hand, seeming absorbed in the task.

"Didn't stop me from making you mine the moment there was an arrow in Coin's heart." He finally muttered.

I smiled.

"And what was I suppose to do, let you die?" He demanded. "You were nothing like anybody I had ever met. You had these amazing curves but you were _starved_ , even in thirteen. You stood up to Coin and the rest at every chance you got, even after everything you'd been through in the Capitol. Even when you were rescued from the Capitol by Coin you still knew how to put her in her place and make yourself almost indispensable to her. You were queen of their tactical team but you were barely older then a child."

"Didn't stop you from making me yours the moment there was an arrow in Coin's heart." I mimicked back to him, smiling, trying to break the sudden tension.

We had never spoken about how we had first got together. It had just sort of happened. Peeta and Katniss made fun of us a lot about it, because, they said, whilst they might have been the epic love story, we were the epic love. A love born in the middle of a war that managed to survive, and flourish, in peace. Practically unheard of. We fought like animals, we were as different as day and night, agreed on barely anything yet somehow— we were there. We were alive. And we had become the only pieces that fit together in the clusterfuck puzzle that had become our psyche.

Finnick continued as if I hadn't spoken, his grip on me tightening.

"And god, you could use a blade like nobody else. Yet nobody paid any attention to you, not really." His eyes gleamed at me from across the darkness, predatory suddenly. "Until the day you followed Katniss Everdeen onto that flight and flew straight to the front line."

That had been the first time Katniss and I had ever really spoken. She'd been pissed at me, when she'd first found out, but as we'd sat in that lonely container she had seemed to dislike the silence between us.

" _You're the girl they brought back from the Capitol, aren't you?" She asked, looking at me with those massive, pained dark eyes. "With Joanna and Peeta."_

 _I nodded, but said nothing._

 _"They seem a lot more screwed up than you." She was watching me closely, I could tell. Waiting for me to spring on her, attack her. She was waiting for me to become my Mutt self, just like Peeta. Waiting for me to lash out, just like Joanna._

 _I watched her back just as carefully._

 _"I'm just as screwed up as they are." I finally told her. "The Capitol made me into a Mutt, just like they did with the others. But, something about me, up here," I reached up, gently tapping my temple with one finger. "Means I can compartmentalise it. I can feel it, brewing in me, in this part of my mind I'm trying to ignore. But I'm going to ignore it, and I'm going to keep it contained until the perfect moment."_

 _She looked away, clearly unused to the intensity in my voice, then turned back to me._

" _So you don't think this is all my fault?" She finally asked._

 _I tapped my temple again._

" _Something up there does. Something up there blames you for my brothers deaths, for my parents torture, for the sheer hell they put us through in the Capitol. But the rest of me realises you're just a sad girl who is trying to figure out how to save her own skin as well as her families." I turned, propping my head up on my knees. "You don't know what real suffering is, not really. And maybe thats the reason I can compartmentalise you so easily. You're messed up, sure— what Victor isn't?—but what they put us through in the Capitol? What I've gone through with my family? That's real suffering."_

 _I looked back at her. She looked shocked, startled, maybe even a little outraged._

" _I don't want you to become me, Katniss." I told her, softly. "You're so close to it, I know you are. But I don't want you to become me. I don't want you to suffer as so many of us have already done. I don't want anybody to suffer like that ever again."_

 _We were silent for a long time after that. I don't know how long. It wasn't under the craft began its descent that she spoke again._

" _The perfect moment?" She finally questioned._

 _I turned to her, and grinned._

" _Why do you think I'm heading to the front line?" I asked her. "When I eventually break, I want it to be right there, in the Capitol. After all, what better place to release my Mutt self apart from the place of its birth? We are weapons the Capitol never meant to make, Katniss— lets show them just how much damage we can do."_

 _She stopped. Blinked at me. Then Katniss Everdeen, the Girl On Fire, began to laugh. And she didn't stop laughing until it was time to disembark._

Finnick and I confronted each other in the darkness again.

"I can't bare to see you in pain, Lil." His tone was anguished. "Please, don't ask me too. And I know you can't bare to see me in pain either— I know we're broken. But thats why we need to try. We need to try Katniss's game, we need to try everything and anything, for each other and the kids and just..." He trailed off, clearly unsure. Finally, he took a deep breath. "I want to eat sugar cubes again." He finally confessed to me. "Before the war I used to love sugar cubes. Now, just the sight of one causes me to break out in a sweat. And do you remember, last Christmas? I saw you and Peeta. I saw you both hear that damn robotic dog we got Finn as his present and hang on to the backs of your seats like you were going to explode. I heard you sobbing in each others arms because you two are the only ones who know exactly what you went through because you won't tell Katniss and I." 

I objected to that immediately, going to pull out of his arms but he hung on tight.

"I don't want to hurt you anymore then I already have too!" I protested. "You don't need to know everything that happened in the Capitol, just as you won't tell me everything that happened in your games, or in the war before you met me. Finnick, I don't understand what you're trying to tell me, or what you're trying to ask me. Just spit it out."

He was silent for a beat or two more.

"I don't know what I'm trying to say." He finally confessed. "Just sometimes, on nights like these, I wonder... I wonder if I'm enough for you. Would we even be together if the war hadn't happened? And will you get sick of my pathetic form of comfort when you know I can't give you any better, because I'm just as screwed up as you? I love you, Lillibet, and you will always be enough for me, you and the kids, but—"

I had no idea where this was coming from. Most of what he was saying seemed to make no sense, and the way he was flitting from one subject to another was sporadic and unnerving. I had a feeling the nightmares were coming for him too— he needed comfort, reassurance that I was always going to be here, that the Capitol or my own head wouldn't take me away from him.

I reached for him, tugged him closer, and placed my lips on his. Instantly, he took control, dominating the kiss, plundering my mouth, taking everything I had to give him with a desperation born of nightmares, horrors and confusion. I let him, offering myself willingly to him, waiting for the perfect moment.

Eventually, he released me. We leaned our foreheads together, breathing heavily, lost in our own thoughts.

"I just don't know what to do to keep you with me, and keep you safe, Lil." He finally confessed. "How can I protect you from the monsters in your own head?"

There were a number of ways I could have responded to that. I could have pointed out I had the exact same worry— that one day he would sink into a nightmare so deep even I couldn't pull him out of it. That one day he would be so locked in his brain that I would be left on my own. That one day he would walk out and realise he needed somebody less damaged then himself in order to heal.

But I didn't say any of those things. Instead, I just held him tighter, and brushed my lips against his once more.

"Just...stay with me." I begged against his lips. I tasted the salt of our mingled tears on my tongue. "Please. Stay with me, Finnick." 

And, without a moments hesitation, he pulled back and met my eyes steadily, bright and reassuring.

"Always." He breathed.

-0-

 _ **Hey let me know what you think of this little foray! Before you get angry, I do love Annie and Finnick, but I wanted to be able to add my little twist to things and play with my own character instead of somebody elses. Also, obviously, I needed Finnick alive to do so. Comments are very much appreciated, but please, no flames. Thank you very much!**_


End file.
